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Crafting Nook & Storage Work Bench

My crafting nook and storage area has been a very long work-in-progress with lots of trial and error test runs. It also underwent changes throughout this past year as my hobbies expanded.

This is what the area looked like in 2012, untouched, and overcrowded with a lot of items the previous homeowners left behind. This is before I painted the concrete walls, the sheet-rocked wall to the left of the door, and before I refinished the floors.

Below is the setup I had in September 2014. I utilized a rolling clothes cart for storage. This was also before my obsession with ribbon, so I had a lot less to store. I used skirt hangers to hang up the rolls of wrapping paper, pants hangers to store the ribbon spools, and another pants hanger to store tissue paper.

I also added a few plastic storage bins with drawers in Sept 2014 as my crafting supplies began to grow.

Two months later, I knew I needed to figure out something else. My ribbon had more than quadrupled, and I didn’t like the overall layout of the area. I had a longer table with folding legs that I wound up refinishing. It had white legs that I spray painted a metallic silver, and I replaced the cream-colored vinyl top with gray. I also added a piece of 2×4 to the right inside area at top to line up with the already-there 2×4 at the top of the other side and got a piece of melamine board to create a shelf. I used cheap tension rods from Wal-Mart to store the ribbon spools. I used large buttons with basic black ponytail holders looped through the back as the curtain holdbacks. This is what it looked like in November 2014.

In February of this year, I knew I needed to do something more elaborate, partly because I wanted to practice my woodworking skills. So I decided to build a custom-made craft storage work bench. I built the roll-out drawer for the bottom first because I wanted to make SURE there was enough clearance before building the entire bench.

And then I built the main frame with 2×4’s, using my Kreg Jig pocket hole kit to attach the pieces of wood. I didn’t fill in the holes in case I ever wanted to take it apart for some reason in the future. Who knows when I’ll decide to re-do it!

This is what it looked like when I finished it in February. The 2×2’s that divide the sections in front were a bitch because they were not straight at all. But that’s okay. I didn’t need it to be exactly perfect, and you really can’t tell in the picture.

As you can see above, my ribbon is nowhere in the picture anymore. It got stored in plastic tubs (you can see one to the far right in the picture). I would have to figure out what to do with those later.

And this is what the craft storage work bench looks like as of right now, with some more detailed pictures below.

I cut out sections on the top piece so my wrapping paper and deco mesh would be accessible and would stay in place.

The storage bins contain various crafting supplies.

The drawer underneath holds various miscellaneous items.

And the shelf on top holds gift basket items and gift boxes, along with tissue paper.

And I made a little desktop storage bin for small paint brushes, pencils, ruler, scissors, etc. I basically took a box, lined the inside the empty toilet paper rolls, and then used adhesive spray to attach the fabric.

I’m pretty sure the crafting nook will stay this way for a while as I am currently working on the long workbench that will connect my wood storage workbench with this crafting storage workbench.